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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (9538)	1/2/2005 4:52:28 PM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 20039

Ray > It's quite stunning to see how easily the American public acquiesces to this chicanery. It's not simply "acquiescence to chicanery", as you suggest, but a far more complex relationship between a law-abiding and obedient subject and an authority figure whom that subject believes in and looks up to. Indeed, that relationship could be no better described than that which existed between the terrified and confused American people after 9-11 and their omnipotent and all-knowing government which, allegedly, was committed to retribution and revenge for the heinous act as well as the protection of its subjects. In the circumstances, the people could hardly be expected to consider, let alone accept, that the ones to whom they looked for protection and salvation were the very ones who were responsible for the act which necessitated their protection and salvation. I know I have mentioned this before, although not on this thread, but it is appropriate to mention it again. As far as I am aware, the series of "Obedience to Authority" experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram gives the greatest insight into the relationship between an arbitrary authority figure and an obedient subject who believes in that authority and who is doing his best to please that authority -- even if that means doing something which goes against the subject's own moral principles. In other words, what the authority figure says is of more importance than the subject's own values or ideas. The position of authority has determined that. Indeed, if the circumstances are appropriate (as with 9-11), the subjects cannot think for themselves and will do -- and believe -- exactly as they are told to do. en.wikipedia.org muskingum.edu Milgram's experiments were used to demonstrate that, for an authority, good or malevolent, to succeed, it is necessary to have an obedient and compliant subject who believes in that authority and who tries to comply with it. Indeed, the Milgram experiments were used to show that identical traits existed in the American subjects who participated in his experiments as existed in the Nazis who committed the Holocaust atrocities. The acts were done not because the perpetrators were "bad" but because they were "good". They were simply following orders and doing as they were told. And the bottom line is that if such atrocities are to be avoided in future there is only one way that can be achieved -- by the subjects disobeying the authority of their leaders and not blindly following them. Of course, this presupposes a state of quasi-anarchy where people think for themselves and are responsible for their own actions as well as for those of their government. But is this not the price of liberty -- and is it not also what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Amendments to the US Constitution? Those values seem very distant now.